Unabated Human Rights Abuses in Balochistan and the Silence of the United Nations​

​The history of the Baloch Nation bears testament to the brutality of the regimes of Pakistan and Iran. In both states, Baloch people face various forms of discrimination, while the resource wealth of Balochistan is plundered by the occupying states. The revenues from the exploitation of these resources—including natural gas, gold, silver, copper and marble—and the benefits of control over the strategic ports of Gwadar and Chabahar, accrue primarily to Islamabad and Tehran. Mean while, the Baloch nation experiences high rates of illiteracy, and lacks access to drinking water, health services, schooling, electricity, communications technology, and employment opportunities. ​Historical attempts by the Baloch people to pursue justice and an improvement in their living conditions have often met with brutal repression: illegal abduction, inhumane treatment, execution while incarcerated and even extrajudicial killing. ​For instance, in 1929, the ruler of western Balochistan, Mir Dost Muhammad Khan Baloch, was defeated by Iranian forces who had occupied the Khan’s territory. He paid the ultimate price for his resistance when he was hanged in a Tehran prison. ​Since then, successive Iranian regimes have summarily executed Baloch activists who sought justice and equality. ​In 1947, as the British raj came to an end and Pakistan and India became independent states, the rulers of Kalat (a territory within Balochistan) were betrayed by their lawyer Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. In March 1948, the Pakistani army invaded Kalat, against the wishes of the Baloch population. Both of these betrayals are emblazoned on the memory of the Baloch people. ​In May 1959, Pakistani army chief General Tikka Khan the butcher of Bengal took an oath on the Quran to offer amnesty to the Baloch leader Nawab Norowz Khan, and wanted to peacefully negotiate a resolution to their grievances. Instead of honouring his word, however, Tikka Khan arrested Nawab Norowz Khan, along with his two sons and nephews, and incarcerated them in the Hyderabad prison, in Sindh province, while his sons and nephews were executed in prison, Nawab Norowz Khan died of old age in prison. ​ ​In February 1973, a democratically elected Baloch nationalist government was abolished by the Pakistani democratic regime. Numerous Baloch nationalists and secular leaders were labeled traitors to the state of Pakistan, indicted, and relegated to the Hyderabad prison. In a brutal military operation from 1973 to ’77, the Pakistani army, with the aid of the Iranian air force, slaughtered an estimated 6,000 Baloch. Teenage Baloch girls and young women were kidnapped by Pakistani military and sold into the sex trade in Lahore. ​Forced disappearances are nothing new for the Baloch nation. In 1976, of young Assadulah Mengal, the leader of a Baloch student organization at Karachi University and son of former Chief Minister of Balochistan Sardar Attaulah Mengal by the Pakistani army and killed in custody. In June 1981, another student leader, Hamid Baloch, was acquitted on charges of firing at an Omani army officer was unhurt in the incident; however, Pakistani Army officials arbitrarily reversed the court decision. Baloch was executed later that year in Mach prison, at the age of 23. ​Since 2005, when 5th military operation arose in Balochistan, instances of human rights violations in the region have mounted. The Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP), a human rights organization led by the family members of abducted Baloch citizens, reports that about 19,000 Baloch have been illegally arrested by Pakistani security forces and intelligence agencies. VBMP also asserts that more than 1000 Baloch individuals in custody have been extrajudicially assassinated by the Pakistani authorities—including professors, political leaders, students, teachers, lawyers, doctors, journalists, artists, and activists. Innocent women, children, and elderly Baloch have been killed during military operations by Pakistani forces, the organization notes. ​Among the violations is the Pakistani army’s 2005 abduction of 23-year-old Baloch female teacher Zareena Marri, who has been subjected to sexual assault while in army custody, according to the human rights activist Munir Mengal. ​On August 26, 2006, the former governor and premier of Balochistan and public figure Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti assassinated in a Pakistani military raid, when a shell exploded in the cave in which he dwelled. He had sacrificed his life to the cause of freedom for his people, and had been involved in the struggle for self rules for Balochistan for decades. He had turned to armed resistance after his efforts at pursuing Baloch rights through diplomacy and constitutional means had been thwarted by the Pakistani government. ​In the year leading up to his death, Bugti had offered his support for non Baloch family physician Dr. Shazia Khalid, who suffered a violent rape in his home town Sui, Dera Bugti, Balochistan in 2005, allegedly at the hands of a Pakistani army captain. Bugti and other Baloch leaders demanded that the captain be penalized for his actions. Instead, Pakistan’s strongman ruler Dictator Pervez Musharraf officially exonerated the officer; no charges were laid. ​​The case of Dr. Shazia Khalid figured prominently in Canadian director Terence McKenna’s 2006 documentary Land, Gold and Women, which aired on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Canada’s prime minister at the time, Paul Martin, condemned the comments of Pakistan president Musharraf, who suggested that Pakistani women wanted to get themselves raped, in order to arouse sympathy and secure residency in Canada and other prosperous countries. ​Another notable Baloch leader, Nawazada Balach Marri, was assassinated in 2007 by Pakistani army on the border between Afghanistan and Balochistan. In April 2009, the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency (the ISI) kidnapped three other Prominent Baloch leaders: Mir Gulam Muhammad, Lala Munir, and Sher Muhammad, from inside their lawyer’s office at gunpoint. Their mutilated bodies were discovered shortly thereafter, near the city of Turbat. ​In more recent years, Baloch students and other activists have continued to be targeted by Pakistani security forces. Among these was 27-year-old graduate student leaders Zakir Majeed Baloch, abducted in front of eyewitnesses by the ISI in Mastung, Balochistan, in 2009. Zahid Baloch, another student leader of Baloch student organization Azad, was abducted in front of three Baloch students’ leaders on March 18, 2014, from Quetta, capital city of Balochistan by Pakistani security forces; he continues to languish in prison. ​For the past six years, the families of abducted Baloch have been continuously engaged in a peaceful struggle for their loved ones’ safety and security, while demanding justice from the Pakistani judiciary. Sadly, they have been turned away by the Pakistani Supreme Court, parliaments, and other democratic institutions. ​In 2013, the VBMP consists of abducted Baloch families announced that it would undertake a historical Long March from Quetta to Karachi, in defence of justice and human rights. They walked an additional 3000 kilometres to the capital city of Islamabad, where they met with UN officials and submitted a memorandum with a list of abducted Baloch activists. For three months, Baloch student organizations, with the support of their sympathizers, held peaceful rallies and undertook hunger strikes for Baloch student leaders Zahid Baloch. Instead of attaining justice, Baloch activists are killed in custody, and their bodies have been discovered on roadsides and in desolate areas across Balochistan. ​Many in the Baloch leaders and Diaspora around the globe are upset at the lack of response to these atrocities on the part of the United Nations, despite extensive evidence marshaled by respected human rights entities like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and even UN working groups. A key purpose of the UN is to ensure equal rights, freedom and self-determination of peoples; surely the Baloch people are entitled to the moral support of the world’s foremost international body. ​How, in the 21st century, can the Baloch people keep silent about these human rights violations and extrajudicial killings? Today’s fully conscious, literate, and informed Baloch intellectuals, leaders, activists are confident that social media and the World Wide Web will help to expose the dirty war waged by Pakistan and Iran against the Baloch people. ​The Baloch people call on the United Nations to put a stop to this deadly oppression, before it’s too late.